? Modded Oppo 983 ?

6 moons verviewed the Benchmark DAC1 with and without mods.

FYI Tgrisham
The Benchmark DAC/Pre has a better preamp section than the DAC1.
The Lavry DA10 is said to be better than the DAC1. I don't know about the DAC1 USB or DAC/Pre version. This is according to the pro audio reviews.

I don't know anyone that has compared the Digilink3 to it. But I wanted the volume control that both Benchmark and Lavry offered, and the Benchmark matched my amp better. So that is how the Benchmark took up residence in my system.

I do think stand alone DACs are the way to go with a 2 channel system because of the changing face of digital playback CD, DVD, BluRay. I can use them all...ahhhh!

There is a side benefit not normally mentioned to a standalone dac, its simple, the DAC quite honestly may not be much better than the internal ones on many machines, in fact in some ways might be worse, and having the extra cables etc… Don't help either, HOWEVER they are guaranteed Isolated and separate power supplies from your whirring mechanical transport being fed in the other machine on the shelf :-)

Undertow,
Yes, having its own power supply and chassis to isolate it from the vibration producing transport is a positive side of a stand alone DAC, not to mention the added versatility.

As far as the extra digital cable, the Benchmark's design has the specific characteristic of not being dependent on needing a good digital cable, so the only cable to be concerned about is the analogue interconnect which you need with any cdp. This pro DAC can use up to 300' of basic RG-6 cable w/o loss or jitter. It has been tested with 300' of Radio Shack cable with no difference in sound. But I do use a reasonable quality digital cable anyway. The Benchmark even processes the optical input w/o jitter.

Yes, having its own power supply and chassis to isolate it from the vibration producing transport is a positive side of a stand alone DAC, not to mention the added versatility

I don't think it is the mechanical vibration isolation that is so much the benefit of a separate DAC. The problem is the secondary effects of the control system in a CDP player, which has to manage the transport (lazer focus/tracking etc.) Since the disc rotates there is a good chance to induce sinusoidal variations in the power demanded by the servos in the transport. Jitter is not such a bad thing if it is completely random, however, if you can imagine that the transport servos could be causing sinsoidal or cyclical power demands from the CDP power supply then it is easy to imagine how the shared power supply could subsequently induce a specific jitter frequency in the nearby DAC clock.

There are many ways to imagine this happening. If you turn up the volume loudly then the CD itself may vibrate slightly - inducing periodic control corrections in the lazer pick up. If the hole in the CD is not absolutely perfectly centered then during every revolution there will be a sinusoidal control signal sent to the lazer. If the metal layer within the CD is not perfectly flat or aligned within the plastic then this too may cause periodic corrections to be required. Ed Meitner stuck a CD player right in front of a speaker and demonstarted at least one of these jitter effects about 15 years ago.

Obviously before getting too worried - these effects are extremely small and most people are happy with an ordinary CDP - so many transports do not exhibit any of these problems - such as the extremely popular line of Cambridge CDP's, which sound great at a reasonable price. However there is probably a better than 50/50 chance that you find one of these problems in most low end CDP players.

On another note - it is good to see you are happy with your new toy.